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Guest column: Shotspotter is effective crime-fighting tool

The Times-Union front page headline screams and leaps off the page at us: “Like Dodge City” as police grapple with gun crimes.

Someone was shot in our city almost every day in April.

As a former police legal adviser, assistant state attorney and councilman-at-large, I feel compelled to express outrage that we are allowing this to happen.

There is a way to fight back, a strategy that has been and continues to work in other cities in America to reduce in a dramatic way the gun violence and murders.

A technology exists that would instantly notify police the exact location of a gunshot way before a 911 call provided such information. It’s called Shotspotter, a high-tech detection system, and it works.

Where? Miami Gardens, Belle Glade (Palm Beach sheriff), Riviera Beach, Milwaukee, Nassau County, N.Y., and Richmond to name just a few places.

Miami has just signed a contract, and Bradenton is very interested.

The City of Jacksonville passed on a chance to use Homeland Security dollars to place a partial system in the neighborhoods under siege.

By covering as little as 6 square miles, the strategically placed Shotspotter system, our eyes in the sky, would be a tremendous weapon for our police.

It’s no coincidence that the most pain and terror happens in former Mayor John Delaney’s well-intentioned “Intensive Care” neighborhoods.

Who in government can tell us why we refuse to give our poorest neighborhoods and our police the very best weapons available to prevent crime and fight back?

So where does the money come from to acquire such a system? Here’s a clue: $13.4 million from the Shipyards settlement.

Heaven help us if we cannot come to the conclusion swiftly that stemming the tide of gun violence and the murder of our children deserves at least a couple of million of those dollars. We did it with the emergency 911 system and the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

Shotspotter can be an awesome weapon as the other two systems were. If we want Jacksonville to move forward as a great city, we must put our people first.

I pray that enlightened leadership will do what must be done. How many more screaming tragic headlines will it take before we, together, act?

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